As I and other traditionalist conservatives often point out (though our respective ways of putting it may differ slightly), the highest thing according to liberalism is the self and its desires. Only that which we personally choose has moral validity. That which is given to us by God, nature, and society without our personal choice and desire—our upbringing, our culture (along with the transcendent moral order it represents), our genetic inheritance, our race, even our very bodies and our sex—has no reality or value and should have no influence over us. Now Mark Richardson quotes a liberal “ethicist,” Francesca Minerva, who takes that view to its logical conclusion. She says that since young babies have not yet formed desires and plans, they may be killed (she calls it “after-birth abortion”) if their presence on earth interferes in the desires and plans of other people who have formed desires and plans, namely their parents, their other immediate relatives, and even society as a whole. She writes:

If … an individual is capable of making any aims (like actual human and non-human persons [I assume Minerva means a legal person such as a corporation]), she is harmed if she is prevented from accomplishing her aims by being killed. Now, hardly can a newborn be said to have aims, as the future we imagine for it is merely a projection of our minds on its potential lives. It might start having expectations and develop a minimum level of self-awareness at a very early stage, but not in the first days or few weeks after birth.

On the other hand, not only aims but also well-developed plans are concepts that certainly apply to those people (parents, siblings, society) who could be negatively or positively affected by the birth of that child. Therefore, the rights and interests of the actual people involved should represent the prevailing consideration in a decision about abortion and after-birth abortion.

Earlier tonight I posted two items (here and here) about how our liberal civilization is reverting to some of the darkest aspects of the pre-Jewish, pre-Christian past, including human and child sacrifice both metaphorical and real. Then, by “chance” (hah), I wandered over to Richardson’s site and saw this item about a liberal academic proposing the literal, not metaphorical, murder of babies in the name of the dark god of liberalism, the self-created, self-worshipping self.

Also note how in Minerva’s scheme the very people who, in normal circumstances, give their unconditional protection to a young baby, namely its parents and the larger society, become that which has the right to destroy the baby, indeed, if their desires and plans so dictate, ought to destroy it.

And let us not think, because Minerva’s ideas seem so extreme that they are unlikely ever to be put into effect, that her philosophy of child sacrifice is not relevant. As Thomas Bertonneau has suggested, modern liberal society is already founded systematically on sacrifice. And it is true that on every front of the liberal project we see such sacrifice: of whites to blacks (“Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack a Victim of His School’s Racist Teaching?”); of men to women; of producers to parasites; of productive enterprises to the favored clients of Democrats; of taxpayers to public employees unions; of private institutions and churches to women who demand free birth control pills and to would-be “transgender” people who demand free sex change operations; of the best health care system in the world to the supposed urgent needs of the disadvantaged, which turn out to be the demand of women for free birth control pills and of “transgender” people for free sex change operations; of America to unassimilable immigrants; of our culture to other cultures; of the lives of our soldiers to diversity; of the Western world to Islam; of normality to liberated sodomy; of our national defense to the “rights” of women and homosexuals and to the demand that blacks be proportionately represented in every prestigious profession and sector of society. Everywhere we look, Democrats are requiring that officially designated “oppressor” and “privileged” groups unjustly sacrifice themselves to people who are unjustly demanding their goods, their well-being, their peace of mind, their freedom, their lives, their country. Bertonneau has named the phenomenon. Now we understand. Liberalism is a human sacrifice cult.

- end of initial entry -

Kristor writes:

The synchronicity just keeps on coming. All this is happening as Rick Santorum — i.e., Richard Sanctorum, “Strong Power of Holiness” — the arch-Catholic and foe of abortion, is giving Mitt Romneycare a stiff challenge.

And the synchronicity is quite particular, too. Guess who edits the Journal where Minerva’s essay was published? Julian Savulescu, of Oxford, who is so excited about a pharmacological cure for racism. Savulescu is her faculty mentor; she studied with him at Oxford.

Hell, Lawrence, this is just like That Hideous Strength. It gets more that way every day.

Kristor writes:

In your last paragraph you have tied all the threads together, at last. It is a fit summation. All the pieces of the Enemy’s vast dreadful plan are now falling into place.

What will happen now?

I would not be surprised if Obama wins. If Obama wins, it’ll be Nero all over again, with a nice “modern” bureaucratic face. Everything we are seeing, all the dynamics you have tied together in that fell paragraph, will be more and more sharpened and amplified, until the whole thing just tips over -for financial reasons, if for no other.

Interesting times. God save us from the power of death. Tell you what, if we must go, let’s go singing, shall we? As the nuns and nobility did in their tumbrils in 1789. That’ll show ‘em.

Here’s what we could sing:

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

March 8, 10:15 a.m.

Timothy A. writes:

This is a very powerful entry. I do have one nagging doubt, though, and that is how this characterization of liberalism as sacrifice-cult differs from that of Ayn Rand. I read her many years ago, but her work immediately came to my mind while reading the final paragraph in your initial entry.

LA replies:

I’m surprised at the question. Other than my deliberately Randian-sounding phrase about the sacrifice of “producers to parasites,” most of the reasoning in the entry, and most of the items in the catalogue in the last paragraph, would be alien to Rand as well as to her followers, who regard traditionalists as bigoted monsters. For Rand and the Randians, God is a ridiculous myth and people who believe in God are anti-life mystics and the moral equivalent of Communist thugs; society and culture have no reality or value apart from the protection of individual rights; and people who think that race matters in any way to the formation and character of society are evil collectivists. The Randians believe in an absolute individualism which, though it formally opposes the sacrifice of the worthy to the unworthy, denies any legitimacy to the social order other than the rights of individuals; which in turn necessarily leads to the adoption of the liberal idea that discrimination is the supreme evil which must be ruthlessly eliminated; which in turn helps break down the social order and lead the way to the very sacrifices that Randian individualism formally opposes.

As I’ve said before and will keep saying, libertarianism and Randianism are forms of right-liberalism, and when right-liberalism, with its cult of individual rights über alles, becomes the ruling belief of a society, it automatically mutates into left-liberalism, with its cult of the sacrifice of the society to aliens and the “oppressed.”

John Dempsey writes:

Every now and then, you write something that is so profound and accurately correlates and synchronizes so many of our modern ills, that it just blows me away. This is one of those times. Your insight is invaluable.

Kathlene M. writes:

A very profound posting. I know of two Catholic bloggers who have referred to the Democratic Party as the Party of Moloch due to their support of abortion and Planned Parenthood. But no one I know of has referred to liberalism as a religion of human sacrifice.

Perhaps we should now refer to the liberals as “Molochites?”

Alan M. writes:

Here is a reference that likely one of the other commenters mentioned:

Yesterday’s insane reaction to Komen, by the press and the government gave me a mental image of Moloch, enraged and stomping and roaring because there was a threat of less meat coming to his fire.

Today, Moloch is appeased; the media’s heartbeat and respiration are returning to normal. They and their pals in DC can take a nice, deep cleansing breath and sit back and smile, understanding what they have just demonstrated to themselves, their enemies and the world: you don’t have to fall in love; just fall in line, or you will fall, altogether.

The Day of the Bully has dawned. Institutional aggression, carried out by mobs is the ascendent modality, and they’re feeling emboldened. If the brouhahas of Wisconsin toned them, this was a stinging punch.

D. Edwards writes:

You may find this of interest on this topic:

During their discussion, [Beck and Lapin] tackled the elements comprising this growing phenomenon and explored how its expansion and prominence is taking form in contemporary society. Due to the importance of the subject, GBTV has made the entire, five-part interview available free-of-charge (watch it, below).

In Part I, Beck and Lapin discuss the historical nature of Baal and the vast cultural and societal changes that we’ve seen here in America over the past few decades. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Baal, Lapin provides a very pointed definition (this quote is present in Part II of their discussion):

“Think of it as spiritual gravity. It is that which tugs our better natures downwards—to everything that is a yielding to bodily appetites, a yielding to darkness, a yielding to hopelessness and pessimism, a yielding to a sense of shortage and misery. All of these things that are so easily capable of overwhelming us as human beings as we struggle to remain encouraged and bright and filled with faith. That is the tension that exists within our hearts.”

In a world dominated by negative media messages, false idols and temptations, it is this concept of Baal—this “spiritual warfare”—that holds the potential to prevent human beings from connecting with God and from being the fulfilled individuals God would like them to be.

“The dark and depraved side of human nature is as evident today in the United States of America and in the most sophisticated corners of America—perhaps specifically there,” Lapin explained.

I agree with your commentators. This is possibly the most profound and powerful post I’ve ever read on your website.

Ever since I discovered your blog, and started reading more serious authors (Belloc, Chesterton) to improve my understanding of the Occident (for this is my home), I have arrived at the conclusion that Christianity is the root cause of Western success.

I agree with analysis put forth by Eric Hoffer and “Spengler” (David Goldman) that Christianity served to Judaize the West. Hoffer argues that oftentimes a heresy serves as the best mechanism for transmission of core values of the orthodoxy. Thus did Communism serve as vehicle to transmit the basic tenets of Capitalism and Industrialization to agrarian societies like Russia and Cuba. Similarly, the Jewish tradition of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God was transmitted through a Jewish heresy, Christianity. This God, unlike pagan gods, loved all his people. Each and every one. Christianity is responsible for abolishing the practice of infanticide through exposure which was endemic in pre-Christian Greece. Christianity forbade the Roman paterfamilias from murdering his family on the basis that each individual soul belonged to God, and therefore God alone could take that soul. Man could only do so under specific conditions laid down by that very same God.

These are just two examples of the dramatic changes Christianity wrought in the life of the West. Without Christianity, the West will revert to its barbarism and self-destruction. And so it has begun.

I am melancholic and pessimistic by nature. And nothing about our society is helping that disposition.

I don’t know if there will be a resurgence of Christianity. The only form of Christianity that is thriving is a semi-barbarous anti-intellectual tradition that caters to the lowest common denominator. The Mother Church is dying. Reformation-era Protestant Orders have mutated into unrecognizable heresies that are an affront to God and Man.

Further, in spite of this gruesome attack, there isn’t a single mass protest or other demonstration of white solidarity. Griping online and on radio shows accomplishes nothing. Blacks and Mexicans manage to choke the streets with manpower to prove a point. Whites seem atomized to the point that they are incapable of collective action against the savages in their midst.

Men have fought Moloch before and prevailed, but at horrific cost. A “Pyrrhic Victory.” A victory that would place the Occident on the precipice of the abyss.

Thomas S. writes:

Excellent connection, this brings together so many threads back to the spool. Here is my thread therefrom:

The “soft” education so rampant in today’s universities is representative of this “human sacrifice” to false gods. Instead of being rigorously prepared for a technical career, students are brought in to fill the halls. There, professors spread the profane teaching of those such as Boas, Nietzsche, and Marx. This teaching, with the attitude of searching for “bodies to fill the hall,” is a manifestation of this false sacrifice. Instead of learning the fundamentals of statistics and logic, the social sciences are beset of soft-headed logic and false teachings. Thus, I liken the current over-education of the youth, with the zealous appetite for students, as the most pernicious symptom of group sacrifice to false gods. Pharisees are on the rise.

I note that you were wondering what Minerva and Giubilini meant by “non-human persons.” I’m quite sure that they do not mean corporations! On the contrary, they count as “persons” only those individuals who can subjectively value their lives, which a corporation could do only metaphorically. Following in the footsteps of Peter Singer, Minerva and Giubilini are attempting to avoid “speciesism.” By “non-human persons” they mean animals such as, probably, adult chimpanzees and dolphins (those are fairly common candidates), who have allegedly attained unto the condition of “personhood” by having the capacity to value their lives and have their own aims. Therefore, they are “persons” while newborn human babies are not.

LA replies:

I hope I will be forgiven for the error of thinking that by non-human persons they meant corporations, because that is a familiar concept, while I had never heard of the idea that chimpanzees and dolphins are persons.

But now to the substance. I like dolphins (less so chimpanzees) as much as the next, uh, person. But I have always felt that there was some unwholesome agenda behind the science documentaries constantly repeated over the last 40 years trying to prove that dolphins and chimpanzees possess human-type intelligence. It seemed to me that the real purpose and effect was not to raise the status of the animals, but to lower the status of humanity. And now my suspicion is confirmed. The purpose of asserting that chimps and dolphins are human-like and possess personhood, is to deny the personhood of human babies, and so make it all right to kill them.